#Source : Chicago fire

[youroriginalsublimecupcakestuff]

Jason : *Pitch an idea*

Steph, impressed : 'huh, there might be something here !"

Tim, under his breath :" yeah, a lawsuit."

[incorrectlooneytunesquotes]

Daffy: Did you know that they call us Taffy? Tina: Who’s…they? Daffy: I don’t know actually.

[perfectlysunny02]

i just know kelly severide talks you through it. i just know it.

[reasonsforhope]

On her fingers, Chicago’s Chief Sustainability Officer Angela Tovar counted the city buildings that will soon source all of their power from renewable energy: O’Hare International Airport, Midway International Airport, City Hall.

[Note: This is an even huger deal than it sounds like. Chicago O'Hare International Airport is, as of 2023, the 9th busiest airport in the world.]

Chicago’s real estate portfolio is massive. It includes 98 fire stations, 81 library locations, 25 police stations and two of the largest water treatment plants on the planet — in all, more than 400 municipal buildings.

It takes approximately 700,000 megawatt hours per year to keep the wheels turning in the third largest city in the country. Beginning Jan. 1, every single one of them will come solely from clean, renewable energy, mostly sourced from Illinois’ newest and largest solar farm. The move is projected to cut the Windy City’s carbon footprint by approximately 290,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, the equivalent of taking 62,000 cars off the road, the city said.

Chicago is one of several cities across the country that are not only shaking up their energy mix but also taking advantage of their bulk-buying power to spur new clean energy development.

The city — and much of Illinois — already has one of the cleanest energy mixes in the country, with over 50% of the state’s electricity coming from nuclear power. But while nuclear energy is considered “clean,” carbon-free energy, it is not considered renewable.

Chicago’s move toward renewable energy has been years in the making. The goal of sourcing the city’s energy purely from renewable sources was first established by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2017. In 2022, Mayor Lori Lightfoot struck a deal with electricity supplier Constellation to purchase renewable energy from developer Swift Current Energy for the city, beginning in 2025.

Swift Current began construction on the 3,800-acre, 593-megawatt solar farm in central Illinois as part of the same five-year, $422 million agreement. Straddling two counties in central Illinois, the Double Black Diamond Solar project is now the largest solar installation east of the Mississippi River. It can produce enough electricity to power more than 100,000 homes, according to Swift Current’s vice president of origination, Caroline Mann.

Chicago alone has agreed to purchase approximately half the installation’s total output, which will cover about 70 percent of its municipal electricity needs. City officials plan to cover the remaining 30 percent through the purchase of renewable energy credits.

“That’s really a feature and not a bug of our plan,” said deputy chief sustainability officer Jared Policicchio. He added that he hopes the built-in market will help encourage additional clean energy development locally, albeit on a much smaller scale: “Our goal over the next several years is that we reach a point where we’re not buying renewable energy credits.”

Los Angeles, Houston, Seattle, Orlando, Florida, and more than 700 other U.S. cities and towns have signed similar purchasing agreements since 2015, according to a 2022 study from World Resources Institute, but none of their plans mandate nearly as much new renewable energy production as Chicago’s.

“Part of Chicago’s goal was what’s called additionality, bringing new resources into the market and onto the grid here,” said Popkin. “They were the largest municipal deal to do this.”

Chicago also secured a $400,000 annual commitment from Constellation and Swift Current for clean energy workforce training, including training via Chicago Women in Trades, a nonprofit aiming to increase the number of women in union construction and manufacturing jobs.

The economic benefits extend past the city’s limits: According to Swift Current, approximately $100 million in new tax revenue is projected to flow into Sangamon County and Morgan County, which are home to the Double Black Diamond Solar site, over the project’s operational life.

“Cities and other local governments just don’t appreciate their ability to not just support their residents but also shape markets,” said Popkin. “Chicago is demonstrating directly how cities can lead by example, implement ambitious goals amidst evolving state and federal policy changes, and leverage their purchasing power to support a more equitable renewable energy future.” ...

Chicago will meet its goal of transitioning all its municipal buildings to renewable energy by 2025, the first step in a broader goal to source energy for all buildings in the city from renewables by 2035 — making it the largest city in the country to do so, according to the Sierra Club.

With the incoming Trump administration promising to decrease federal support for decarbonizing the economy, Dane says it will be increasingly important for cities, towns and states to drive their own efforts to reduce emissions, build greener economies and meet local climate goals. He says moves like Chicago’s prove that they are capable.

“That is an imperative thing to know, that state, city, county action is a durable pathway, even under the next administration, and [it] needs to happen,” said Dane. “The juice is definitely still worth the squeeze.”

-via WBEZ, December 24, 2024

[goodluckclove]

You Don't Need an Agent! Publishers That Accept Unsolicited Submissions

I see a few people sayin that you definitely need an agent to get published traditionally. Guess what? That's not remotely true. While an agent can be a very useful tool in finding and negotiating with publishers, going without is not as large of a hurdle as people might make it out to be!

Below is a list of some of the traditional publishers that offer reading periods for agent-less manuscripts. There might be more! Try looking for yourself - I promise it's not that scary!

Albert Whitman & Company: for picture books, middle-grade, and young adult fiction (edit: this source has been reported to be pretty predatory)

Hydra (Part of Random House): for mainly LitRPG

Kensington Publishing: for a range of fiction and nonfiction

NCM Publishing: for all genres of fiction (YA included) and nonfiction

Pants of Fire Press: for middle-grade, YA, and adult fiction

Tin House Books: very limited submission period, but a good avenue for fiction, literary fiction, and poetry written by underrepresented communities

Quirk Fiction: offers odd-genre rep for represented and unagented authors. Unsolicited submissions inbox is closed at the moment but this is the page that'll update when it's open, and they produced some pretty big books so I'd keep an eye on this

Persea Books: for lit fiction, creative nonfiction, YA novels, and books focusing on contemporary issues

Baen: considered one of the best known publishers of sci-fi and fantasy. They don't need a history of publication.

Chicago Review Press: only accepting nonfiction at the moment, but maybe someone here writes nonfiction

Acre: for poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Special interest in underrepresented authors. Submission period just passed but for next year!

Coffeehouse Press: for lit fiction, nonfiction, poetry and translation. Reading period closed at time of posting, but keep an eye out

Ig: for queries on literary fiction and political/cultural nonfiction

Schaffner Press: for lit fiction, historical/crime fiction, or short fiction collections (cool)

Feminist Press: for international lit, hybrid memoirs, sci-fi and fantasy fiction especially from BIPOC, queer and trans voices

Evernight Publishing: for erotica. Royalties seem good and their response time is solid

Felony & Mayhem: for literary mystery fiction. Not currently looking for new work, but check back later

This is all what I could find in an hour. And it's not even everything, because I sifted out the expired links, the repeat genres (there are a lot of options for YA and children's authors), and I didn't even include a majority of smaller indie pubs where you can really do that weird shit.

A lot of them want you to query, but that's easy stuff once you figure it out. Lots of guides, and some even say how they want you to do it for them.

Not submitting to a Big 5 Trad Pub House does not make you any less of a writer. If you choose to work with any publishing house it can take a fair bit of weight off your shoulders in terms of design and distribution. You don't have to do it - I'm not - but if that's the way you want to go it's very, very, very possible.

Have a weirder manuscript that you don't think fits? Here's a list of 50 Indie Publishers looking for more experimental works to showcase and sell!

If Random House won't take your work - guess what? Maybe you're too cool for Random House.

[megalony]

Little Bird- Part 2

This is the second part of my Evan Buckley imagine, thank you all for the amazing feedback on the first part. I hope you will all like this one and I have another part planned.

Taglist: @lunaticspoem@sj-thefanthefan@hellsdragon@im-an-adult-ish@crazylittlethingg@allauraleigh@onceuponadetectivedemigod@ceres27@avyannadawn@sleepylunarwolf@coverupps@justagirlthatlovedtoread @musicistheway @avada-kedavra-bitch-187 @luula @missdreamofendless @bradleybeachbabe @woderfulkawaii  @amberpanda99 @daggersquadphantom @marvel-and-chicago-fan @angryknightstatesmantrash @minjix @lyjen @kmc1989 @itsmytimetoodream @noonenuts @hiireadstuff @ashie-babie @classyunknownlover @jayyeahthatsme @sp1ritssz @dumb-fawkin-bitch @oliverstarksbae @gimatida @heart-35 @supernaturalstilinski @stefansalvatoresgf @kyky9103 @wutheringhearts2275 @gay4hotmilfs @itshamleth @gillybear17

Evan Buckley Masterlist

Part 1

Summary: Evan starts to find himself falling for his new neighbour and her little girl. And he will do anything he can to help them when they need him.

Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Y/n) rolled her lips together and tried to stop the panic from spreading across her face when she cautiously walked through the door into the fire station. She had never been in here before. She had never stepped foot inside any fire station before and it filled her with panic.

What if Evan wasn't here? What if he was out on a call and (Y/n) had to turn around and take Birdie home? What if she wasn't allowed to be here? Evan told her she could come by anytime and he would show Birdie around the station since she had asked so many times. But maybe the Captain wouldn't be so easy-going about friends stopping by. After all, (Y/n) didn't have any kind of emergency.

If Evan wasn't here, (Y/n) wasn't sure she would be allowed to wait around for him to get back. She wouldn't want to impose and wait with strangers. She would rather take Birdie home.

But Birdie was here now, and there was no way the toddler was leaving without seeing Evan first.

A high-pitch squeal left Birdie's lips when she realised where they were and she began clapping her hands. She rocked back and forth in her pushchair until (Y/n) cringed and stopped walking before Birdie tipped herself over.

(Y/n) felt a desireable urge to turn around and rush out before anyone saw them, but when she tilted he head up, a wave of relief and vertigo rushed over her all at once.

Evan was here. He was upstairs, casually leaning over the balcony with his back arched over and a cup of coffee in his hand. The moment his eyes found the source of the squealing, one of the brightest smiles (Y/n) had ever seen washed over his face and he hurried to move.

She swayed back as she tried to keep watching him before she tilted her head forward to stop herself from wobbling.

Moving round, (Y/n) crouched down in front of the pushchair and undid the clasp to let the three year old hop out.

Birdie was off within a second. She stretched her arms out in front of her and bolted as fast as her legs could carry her across to the stairs and she waited at the bottom for Evan to head down to her. Another squeal left her lips when Evan scooped her up and planted her on his hip.

"There's my little bird! Are you okay girlie?" Evan bounced her on his right hip and moved his left hand to cup her neck so he could kiss her cheek.

But he pulled back with a grin when he suddenly realised what she was wearing, more specifically, what she was wearing on her head. She had a miniature yellow helmet that sort of looked like the helmets the team wore when they were out on a call. Of course it was three times smaller than Evan's and it was shaped a little differently, more like a construction hard hat, but it was still similar.

And right across the front, 118 had been painted in dark blue paint in a very neat, cursive handwriting that Evan recognised instantly. He flicked his finger against the hat and tipped it back on Birdie's head so he could see her better and look at that dazzling smile.

"What's this? Are you coming to work with me now, little bird?"

He liked it.

"Yeah," Birdie broke off with a cough and tilted her head down to cough into Evan's chest, almost bashing his chin with her hat. But when she looked back up at him, she grinned and kissed his cheek.

Evan knew she hadn't been at nursery today or yesterday because she had a bad chest infection. She only went to nursery two days a week and this week she was staying at home with (Y/n) because she wasn't well. And she didn't look much better than when Evan saw her yesterday. But she was in a bubbly mood which made him a little calmer.

When Birdie leaned her cheek on Evan's shoulder, he pressed his cheek on top of her helmet and swayed her from side to side while he walked over towards (Y/n). She was moving the pushchair near the lockers so it was tucked up in the corner, away and not at risk of causing any accidents.

He reeled his free arm around her waist and pulled her back into his chest so he could kiss the top of her head. "Hi," He murmured quietly into her hair while (Y/n) turned around in his arm and looped her arms loosely around his torso beneath Birdie's legs.

(Y/n) pressed her chin into Evan's chest so she could look up at him and her lips curved into a gentle smile when she looked up at his baby blue eyes.

"We missed you," She mumbled into his chest with a sheepish grin. It wasn't just Birdie who was desperate to come down to the station and see Evan. (Y/n) missed him too. She wanted to curl around him and hear his voice and see him at work just as much as her daughter did.

"That's what I like to hear. Wanna go meet the team?"

With Birdie tucked up into his chest and neck, Evan took the chance to lean down and kiss (Y/n). Birdie seemed to have an instinct to know exactly when Evan was trying to wrap around (Y/n) or kiss her or get close to her because Birdie would suddenly call out for him and find him no matter where he was.

His hand wandered up her back until he was holding the back of her neck and his thumb brushed up and down her skin beneath her hair. (Y/n) shivered at the touch and she could feel herself going lightheaded as her heartbeat pulsed beneath her skin.

(Y/n) pecked his cheek when they parted and she reached her hand up to hold his hand that moved to loop around the back of her shoulders instead.

They wandered over to the stairs and climbed up and (Y/n) took her time to look around. She had seen a lot of people downstairs near the gym or wandering the halls, but there were a handful of people up here too.

"Hey Buck, do we have guests today?" Bobby leaned back in his seat at the far end of the table and smiled around the rim of his cup.

"These are my girls, (Y/n) and Birdie." Evan had talked about them often enough for the team to know who they were and what they now meant to Evan. And Hen had found their first meeting so sweet when Evan told her about the girls being stuck on the balcony, she seemed to think it was some sort of lovey-dovey, Romeo and Juliet kind of thing.

(Y/n) brushed her hair behind her ear and sat down when Evan motioned to one of the seats at the table. He stood behind her chair and carefully stood Birdie up on the table with his hands on her waist so she didn't slip or tumble.

"That's my Captain, Bobby."

Birdie tilted her head to the side and smiled. They could all see the wheels turning in her head and (Y/n) knew she was wondering why no one was wearing their helmets yet.

"You drive the wee-woo?" She pointed behind her towards the balcony and Bobby nodded when Evan mumbled "The truck," so he knew what she was referring to.

"I do sometimes, and I'm sure Buck will let you look round the truck if you want."

"Oh, wow, what a cool hat. Have we got a new recruit already?" Chimney leaned across the table and planted his hands down opposite Birdie. She spun round to face him and tilted her head down shyly while she leaned back until her back was resting up against Evan's chest. And she smiled when Evan's arms curled around her middle.

"This is my new partner." Evan gave her helmet a little nudge as if to prove his point and Chimney nodded with a grin.

But when he leaned across the table and playfully swiped the helmet from her head, (Y/n) sat forward and shook her head. She had barely been able to get Birdie to take off the helmet when it was time to go to bed last night and when she knew she was coming here, she wouldn't put it down. Birdie was fiercely protective over her toys and that helmet was her new prized possession.

She seemed to think everyone was going to take it away and steal it from her forever. It didn't matter that she could still see it in front of her, it was no longer on her head.

Her arms stretched out in front of her and her lower lip wobbled as a small, croaky sob left her lips and tears pooled in her eyes.

Birdie tilted her head back onto Evan's shoulder and pointed as another cry bubbled past her lips, breaking off into a cough that made her chest hurt and make her cry even more. She shivered when Evan's arm tightened around her waist and she watched him click his fingers assertively at Chimney.

"Give my girl her helmet back."

Chimney handed it back instantly and Evan placed it back on Birdie's head before he turned her around and lifted her up off the table.

"There we go, it's back you're okay. Come on, let's go look round the wee-woo." Evan kissed her cheek and picked her up, letting her sniff and cough into his neck as she bound her arms around his neck. He smoothed his hand up and down her back but he didn't like how much she was coughing or how badly she was starting to struggle to breathe.

(Y/n) quietly mouthed 'sorry' to Chimney but he shook his hand with a smile. He hadn't realised it would upset her, he shouldn't have pinched her helmet. He made his way over to the sink and when Evan turned around, (Y/n) pushed up from the table to follow. But she stopped when Bobby reached out and gently held her wrist to pull her back.

"You both make him very happy." He murmured softly while his eyes remained on Evan who was already walking down the stairs. Happily telling Birdie about all the features on the truck.

A tender smile lit up (Y/n)'s face even as she shook her head and looked back down at Bobby.

"No, he makes us happy."

(Y/n) followed down the stairs and wandered along with them to the truck. She leaned against the side door, arms folded across her chest and a smile lighting up her face as Evan wandered round the truck, showing Birdie all the compartments and telling her what they stored in each one.

When they moved round to the front of the truck, (Y/n) moved too and she smiled when Evan opened the door and gently lifted Birdie up into the driver's seat. She flopped down on the seat and started to giggle and cough when she couldn't see over the steering wheel which she grabbed and pretended to drive so (Y/n) could take a picture.

Reaching up on her tiptoes, (Y/n) curved her arms around Evan's neck and pressed a kiss just below his jaw which acted as a secret button to make him shiver and turn to jelly.

"Thank you for this." She kissed his jaw again and again until Evan turned his head and captured her with a kiss instead. He wormed his arm around her waist to keep her as close as he could get her but just as Evan went to slide his hand down her back towards the top of her jeans, he stopped.

Birdie was coughing again.

"Alright little bird, come here."

(Y/n) stayed wrapped around Evan as he reached up and lifted Birdie down into his arms. Neither of them liked the way she started to wheeze and her eyes filled with tears again when her chest started to ache and twinge from how badly she was coughing.

She burrowed down into Evan's chest but when she kept coughing, Evan's eyes narrowed. He reached his hand up and gently pulled her lower lip down so he could peer into her mouth.

"Her lips are tinged blue… do you mind if I ask Eddie to take a look at her?" The way Evan frowned was enough to make (Y/n)'s heart race and she nodded, curling her hands around his arm to keep herself upright.

It could be nothing, but Evan had been doing this job for a good few years now and he noticed the signs. He knew if someone's inner lips were blue, it was a sign of lack of oxygen or a worser sign if someone already had an infection. Evan would rather be safe than sorry and ask Eddie to do a quick once-over of Birdie so they knew she was okay and didn't need a trip to the doctor.

And he had to ask (Y/n) first. Evan would never want to step on her toes and do something like that without her permission first.

"Baby, can I put your hat in my locker with mine so it stays safe while we go and look round? I don't wanna lose it." Evan waited for Birdie to nod before he swiped the helmet from her head and stepped to put it on top of his helmet in his locker.

He quickly pressed the back of his hand against Birdie's head, pretending he was brushing her hair back while he checked if her skin was flushed or not. It was.

"Eddie," He moved his free hand to cradle the back of Birdie's head, keeping her tucked up into his neck while he headed over to the locker room with (Y/n) hot on his heels. "This is (Y/n) and Birdie… can you do me a favour and check her over for us?"

"Sure, what's wrong?" Eddie smiled at both girls and nodded his head over at (Y/n). He had heard all about them these past few weeks and it was nice to finally meet the girl Evan was infatuated with.

"She's got a chest infection, she's got worse since yesterday." (Y/n) bit down on her thumb and moved to sit next to Evan when he sat down on the bench in front of the lockers. She moved her free hand to rub up and down Evan's thigh as a calming mechanism while Eddie went to retrieve a medic bag.

He came back in and knelt down in front of them, stethoscope in his ears and a wide, calming smile on his face.

"Hey Birdie, I'm just gonna take a quick look at you, okay?"

"You a fireman?" Birdie nuzzled the left side of her face into Evan's chest and curved both her hands around his left arm that she had cuddled to her front like a teddy.

"I am, I'm a medic too." He pressed the stethoscope against the middle of her chest to listen to her heart before he slipped it between her shoulderblades and listened to her breathing. Her lungs were crackling a little like static on a tv and it wasn't a very good sign. "Do you feel sick, sweetheart?"

Birdie looked up at Evan before she looked back down at Eddie and nodded, grumbling to smother a cough. She burrowed more into Evan and closed her eyes but she quickly opened them when Eddie leaned over and gently lifted up her jumper.

"How long's she had the rash?" His voice made panic bubble up inside Evan while (Y/n) leaned over his shoulder to take a look.

"It wasn't there this morning when I got her dressed." (Y/n) would have noticed a rash. She had bathed Birdie this morning and gotten her dressed and she would have noticed the rash that was spreading across the middle of Birdie's chest and around her sternum.

"This won't hurt, stay still for me." He pressed a thermometer in her ear and when Birdie closed her eyes again, Eddie felt her pulse. "She's lathargic with a high temp and a rash… she could have sepsis. She needs to go to the emergency room, now."

Eddie didn't want to worry either of them but he didn't like the way this looked. Birdie had a temperature, a new rash and as well as feeling sick, she was now looking sluggish and still coughing. If she already had a chest infection, that meant she could be developing sepsis which was serious. She needed to be checked out and put onto high strength antibiotics immediately if she was getting sepsis.

"Go get in the ambulance, I'll tell Bobby what's happening and me and Hen will drive you down."

(Y/n) leaned her head on Evan's shoulder and clenched her hands tightly around her bag on the ride down. She had been in the back of an ambulance more times than she'd like to admit with her heart complications, but she had never had to take Birdie in an ambulance before. The only time she had taken Birdie to the emergency room was when she was two and had fallen and smashed her head on the coffee table before they moved out to LA.

Other than that, Birdie had never had anything serious that needed more than a few trips to the local GP. Being in the back of an ambulance because of her daughter was frightening.

She felt a tiny bit better when Evan kissed the top of her head. He hadn't let go of Birdie. Not once.

He didn't want to sit her on the gurney and panic her so he and (Y/n) sat on the edge of the gurney with Birdie on Evan's lap and Eddie in front of them, keeping a check on her vitals. Hen was driving them down with the lights on but no sirens so they didn't alarm Birdie.

"Alright, let's get you inside."

(Y/n) let Evan gently ease Birdie into her arms and she slung her bag on her shoulder, snuggling her daughter up into her chest to try and keep her settled and as calm as possible. She felt Evan's hands on her hips when they climbed down and Eddie guided them through the paramedic entrance and over to the reception desk.

"I've got a three year old with a high temperature, a rash and an infection that's possibly going septic. What bay do you want her in?" Eddie looked around for bay number three and guided (Y/n) and Evan over to the nurse. "Alright, call if you need anything. Buck, just let me know when you need a ride home." Eddie clapped his hand on Evan's back.

He and Hen would leave them to it and be on standby if they needed anything else and ready for when they needed a ride home. Eddie would guess that Birdie was going to be here for a while at least. But Evan might need a lift back to the station to grab his stuff and his keys so he could pick up some things and come back here.

"Y-you're staying?" (Y/n) turned to look up at Evan with watering eyes that bubbled over when he frowned at her.

Did she really think he was going to leave her here alone? Did she think he was going back to work, not knowing if Birdie was alright or not and knowing (Y/n) was panicking and prone to fainting with an elevated heart rate?

"I'm not leaving you here alone. I cleared it with Bobby, I'm staying."

When (Y/n) leaned her head on his shoulder, Evan wrapped his arm around her waist and guided her into the cubicle as a nurse and a doctor followed after them. He wasn't going anywhere, Evan was staying here with his girls to make sure they were both alright and check that Birdie got checked out.

"Okay, and who do we have here?" The nurse smiled politely when (Y/n) sat Birdie down in the middle of the bed. She kept her hand on her daughter's back when Birdie swayed like she was going to flop back and fall asleep.

She reeled off Birdie's full name and date of birth, glancing at Evan when she noticed his lips twitch up into a little smirk. He found it so strange to hear anyone- let alone (Y/n)- refer to her as Bernadette. That was the name on all her records, but (Y/n) never once called her that. For all intents and purposes, her name was Birdie.

"And I presume you're mum and dad?"

"Yes." (Y/n) spoke before she lost her nerve or Evan tried to fumble through his words. If they said he wasn't, they might not let him stay in the room. And she knew that Birdie was so attached to Evan that she practically thought he was her dad. In almost every way, Evan had become her dad.

And she felt his hand give her hip a comforting squeeze when she answered. He moulded his chest over her back and pressed his lips against the back of her head, feeling like a comforting blanket wrapping around her.

"Is she allergic to anything?" The nurse glanced up from her notes to take a quick look at Birdie with a tender smile.

"Ibruprofen and naproxen… like me." Evan glanced his eyes down to Birdie with a smile when the toddler leaned her head on (Y/n)'s arm and squirmed around.

Surprise flooded (Y/n)'s face and adrenaline bubbled up in her stomach and pushed through to her chest.

Evan remembered.

He remembered (Y/n) telling him the only two things she had found Birdie to be allergic to. When she gave her ibruprofen, Birdie came out in a horrible rash and started to be sick and the doctor confirmed she had a mild allergy. Her allergy to naproxen was a bit more severe and she had only taken that once at hospital and never again.

It had been a surprise when (Y/n) found out Evan had a very bad allergy to the exact same thing. It just seemed to cement things even more that Evan was now a part of their little family.

"Let's take a look at this little lady, shall we?" The doctor turned around and pulled a pair of latex gloves over her hands before she wheeled a stool over and sat down in front of the bed.

Birdie leaned back into (Y/n)'s chest and started to wriggle and whimper. She was tired and felt sick and her chest was hurting. She didn't want to be poked and prodded, she wanted to go home. Her eyes closed tight and she leaned back further until (Y/n) pressed her middle up against Birdie's back to keep her sitting up. And (Y/n) felt Evan lean further into her like they were dominos all lined up together.

The doctor listened to Birdie's heartbeat and then her lungs just like Eddie had done. And (Y/n) leaned down to kiss her head when the doctor took her blood pressure.

Birdie squirmed and whimpered until Evan leaned his arm around (Y/n) and brushed his finger beneath Birdie's chin and across her cheek to try and calm her down. "Good girl," He hummed quietly when she stayed still and let the doctor finish taking a reading.

"When did she get the rash?" The doctor looked over Birdie's chest before she pulled her jumper back down and smiled softly at her.

"Sometime this afternoon, no more than a few hours ago."

"Okay, I'd like to take some blood then start her on a round of antibiotics immediately. I'd say she does have sepsis."

A shiver coursed down (Y/n)'s spine and she sighed, tilting her head into Evan's neck. She knew what that meant. Birdie was seriously unwell. Sepsis was the body's way of getting confused and attacking healthy tissue instead of fighting the infection. She needed to get antibiotics and clear the infection quick so her body could calm down and stop attacking her healthy cells.

Reaching down, (Y/n) scooped Birdie up and moved round to sit on the bed herself. She sat Birdie down on her lap and snuggled her close to try and keep her calm. She wouldn't be very pleased when she saw them trying to take her blood.

Evan crouched down at the side of the bed and smiled calmly, taking Birdie's hand in his while the doctor gently held out her other arm and rolled up her sleeve.

"I don't wanna-"

"It won't take long, little bird. You're my partner at the station, aren't you? Close your eyes, then we can tell Bobby how brave you are." Evan smoothed his thumb over the back of Birdie's hand and swiped his other hand across her eyes until she closed them.

He hated to see her sat shaking on (Y/n)'s lap, anticipating the pain she was going to feel and she jumped when the numbing spray and cotton swab swiped across her elbow. The moment the needle slipped into the crease of her elbow, she let out a low, broken whine that ended in a grumbling cry.

She began to tremble and smothered her face into (Y/n)'s chest while Evan rubbed the back of her hand and quietly hushed and praised her.

"All done, it's all done baby." (Y/n) hushed as she swayed Birdie from side to side once the needle and vile were removed and a wad of cotton was taped across her elbow. She bounced her knees up and down to try and soothe Birdie. All the way here (Y/n) had watched Eddie try and keep Birdie awake and stop her from falling asleep in case she went unconscious and her state worsened.

But now it would be better if she went to sleep. She had been assessed and if she dozed off, they could give her the antibiotics easier than her fighting and getting distressed like this.

She hated to have her little girl whimpering and bubbling into her shirt and clinging to her like she thought she was never going to see her again.

The doctor came back into the room with an IV of antibiotics and fluids, a tube and a needle and it made (Y/n) wince. Birdie had never had to have a canula in before.

"Once we get her on these, I can sort out getting her admitted into the children's ward."

The moment Birdie lifted her head from (Y/n)'s chest, she started to scream. As much as she could with her burning, wheezing chest, Birdie cried and gasped and screamed until her cheeks puffed out and tears were streaming down her face.

"Baby it's okay-" (Y/n) tilted her head back, willing the tears away when Birdie continued to thrash and cry in her arms. She had found some energy from somewhere. The needle had spooked her. She didn't want another one. She didn't know or care what it was for. Birdie didn't want it.

"No!"

"Birdie I promise it won't hurt-" The doctor frowned and looked up sadly at (Y/n) when Birdie thrashed again, but her next words stunned (Y/n).

"I want daddy!"

She had never said that before.

(Y/n) had been a single mother since the moment she found out she was pregnant. Birdie had never had a father figure in her life. She grew up with (Y/n) and that was it, her sole parent and dependency was on (Y/n). She never asked about a father or why the other kids she knew had dads but she didn't. She never asked about having a dad or why she only had a mum.

But now she had Evan. He was the closest thing to a father figure that Birdie had in her life and she had fallen in love with the idea of him being her dad and being in her life.

(Y/n) looked down at Evan, but the stunned expression she had was mirrored on his face.

He was now stood up beside the bed, hands frozen at his sides as he stared down at the little girl who had captured his heart. His jaw moved and scraped from side to side but he didn't say anything for a second or two. (Y/n) wondered if it was too soon, if Evan wasn't ready for that name and the responsibility that came along with it.

But within a second, he moved. Evan leaned down, his eyes locked with (Y/n)'s, silently asking if it was alright when he reached his hands out towards Birdie.

(Y/n) passed her over without complaint and watched the way Birdie stopped wriggling instantly. She stopped thrashing and kicking and screaming once Evan picked her up. He looped an arm beneath her legs and his other hand rubbed across her back in circles while Birdie looped her arms around his neck so tightly he could barely breathe.

When her face tucked into the crook of his neck, Evan leaned his cheek on top of her head and started to gently rock her up and down.

"It's okay, baby bird. I'm here." He soothed quietly as he kissed her cheek and looked over at the doctor. He silently ticked his head to the side and turned around so he was facing (Y/n) with the doctor behind him. Evan knew Birdie had her eyes closed and her face hidden in his neck and with her arms around his neck, the doctor could stand behind him and quickly sort the IV before she had chance to fight them.

Evan started to hum and tried not to move Birdie too much when he felt the doctor behind him. He stood in between (Y/n)'s thighs and smiled softly when (Y/n) looped her arms low around his hips and pressed her face into his stomach.

A low whine croaked past Birdie's lips when the needle inserted into the back of her hand but she didn't move or pull away.

"You're okay, I've got you."

They both heard the doctor whisper "All sorted," and she patted Evan's shoulder before she left the room to go and get everything sorted. She wanted them on the ward as soon as possible to get Birdie monitored and make sure she didn't get any worse.

When she left the room, (Y/n) slowly stood up, pinned between Evan and the bed pressing into the back of her knees. She looked up at Evan, curving one arm around his waist and her other hand moved to card through Birdie's hair softly.

Evan started to sway from side to side again and kept moving Birdie up and down in his arms. But a quizzical look took over his face when he noticed the tender smile on (Y/n)'s face.

"She's fallen asleep." (Y/n) whispered. That was the quickest (Y/n) had ever known her daughter fall asleep and she was beginning to drool onto Evan's shoulder. Evan didn't realise her arms had gone slack around his neck or that she had stopped whimpering into his neck and changed instead to quiet snuffles and groggy, hitched breaths.

"You uh… you don't mind, what she said?"

"I don't mind my daughter loving you almost as much as I do." (Y/n)'s voice was barely more than a whisper on the wind but they sounded like the loudest, most beautiful thing Evan had ever heard.

He leaned down and stole a kiss from her lips, removing his hand from Birdie's back to wrap it around (Y/n)'s waist instead and reel her as close as he could get her. He could feel her smiling against his lips and he grazed his teeth across her lower lip.

Out of all the nicknames and things Evan had been called over the years, this was definitely the best one he'd ever had.

[vintagetvstars]

In light of James Earl Jones recent passing I thought it would be nice to celebrate his life and career by highlighting some of his major TV works.

Unfortunately most of these shows have not made the leap to online streaming and it’s possible they may have never even been released in any form of physical media. I hope one day we may see these shows available for viewing again but for now I’ll share what I could find of them.

Gabriel’s Fire (1990 - 1991)

“The main character, Gabriel Bird, was played by James Earl Jones. He was a former Chicago police officer who, over twenty years prior, had been wrongfully sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a fellow police officer. In fact, he shot the officer to protect a defenseless mother and child whom the officer was about to murder in cold blood during a 1969 police raid. Unbeknownst to Bird, the raid had been merely a pretext for the police to attack the members of a militant black nationalist organization.

This incident in the character's background was inspired by the 1969 death of Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton, who was shot and killed during a raid upon his residence conducted by Chicago police and other law enforcement personnel. On the show, the street on which the raid involving Bird had occurred was identified as "Hampton Street".

After serving about twenty years in prison, a human rights lawyer decides to work for his release as his testimony is needed in another case. At first, Bird opposes any attempts to release him, as he became accustomed to life in prison, but after his release takes place against his will, he begins to get used to life as a free person and uses his time away from prison to help other people who are wronged by society or the authorities.

When Bird is released, he starts working as a private detective, hired by the lawyer who had helped free him.” (Source)

James Earl Jones won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his role in this show.

While this show is unfortunately unavailable on streaming services I was able to find someone who had uploaded a recording of the first episode on YouTube (unfortunately I could not find the rest of the series at this time). There do not seem to be any DVD or physical media copies of this show.

Paris (1979)

“Los Angeles Police Captain Woody Paris (Jones) is the supervisor of a team of rookie detectives, led by Sergeant Stacy Erickson (Cecilia Hart) and including officers Charlie Bogart (Jake Mitchell), Ernesto Villas (Frank Ramirez), and Willie Miller (Michael Warren). Hank Garrett portrayed Deputy Chief Jerome Bench, Paris' superior, and, in an unusual turn for police dramas of that era, Paris' home and off-duty life was given considerable attention, with Lee Chamberlin portraying his wife Barbara. Paris additionally moonlighted as a professor of criminology at a local university.” (Source)

This show is also unavailable online and I could only find DVD listings on a few obscure sites so it’s unclear if any physical media of this show truly exists. However I did find a short clip of its theme (unfortunately it’s just a short clip of James Earl Jones in the intro sequence followed by the rest of the music over a blurry image of him).

Pros and Cons (1991 - 1992)

"Gabriel Bird is a former Chicago police officer, who, over twenty years prior, had been wrongfully sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a fellow officer. He was exonerated and subsequently became a Chicago private detective (as seen on Gabriel's Fire). Bird then moves to Los Angeles, where he teams up with another private eye, Mitch O'Hannon. Bird also marries his love interest, Josephine, She had been the proprietress of a café where Bird had begun frequenting shortly after his release, at first for her good, homestyle cooking, but soon, primarily for her companionship." (Source)

Once again this show has not made the leap to streaming and there have seemingly been no DVD or physical media releases of it. However I did find a clip of a short promotional spotlight for the show.

Heat Wave (1990)

"Heat Wave is a 1990 American thriller-drama television film about the 1965 Los Angeles Watts Riots" (Source)

Heat Wave was a made for TV movie and also starred: Blair Underwood and Cicely Tyson.

James Earl Jones won the Emmy for Supporting Actor in a Movie or Miniseries for his role in this movie.

This movie is available for streaming on Amazon, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home. And it looks like there are some DVD copies for purchase on Amazon, Ebay, and other sites.

Here is a promotional trailer for the movie.

CW: Police Brutality and Racism

I hope this has bean able to shine a light on a lesser acknowledged section of James Earl Jones extensive acting career and legacy. And I hope one day those shows of his that have been seemingly lost to time may yet see the light of day once again.

[journeytothewestresearch]

Helloooo, I wanna ask smth abt our glutenous pig, Bajie

I personally headcanon him that he's a healer in the grp bc of this one chap when they encountered Red Boy

When Wukong got injured from the true samadhi fire, he almost "died" from it and then Bajie was like " alr back off everyone, I got this " and poof suddenly he can heal someone and not just someone

He healed WUKONG, the monkey that's hard to kill and gets hurt

When I was watching that ep ( the 1986 series) I was like ??? He can do that ??? Bc I don't seem to recall anyone ever acknowledged the fact that he can do that

Then when it gets to the chap where Wukong feed the king w pills that contain dragon horse piss, it's not Bajie who does that, it's Wukong. And I get that bc oh Wukong is cool look at what else he can do but Bajie just standing there and doing whatever Wukong asks him to

Like aren't you the one who healed wukong from the true samadhi fire ??

Did the novel ever mentioned that Bajie can do medicine, herbs or healing ? Maybe the poems but I don't read poems unfortunately even tho it contain lots of context that aren't told in the story

Yes, the novel indicates that Zhu has medical knowledge.

As you mentioned, in chapter 41, he performs life-saving massage to resuscitate Sun Wukong:

With a chuckle, Eight Rules [Zhu Bajie] said, “Brother, stop crying. This ape is pretending to be dead, just to scare us. Feel him a little and see if there’s any warmth left in his breast.” “The whole body has turned cold,” said Sha Monk [Sha Wujing]. “Even if there were a little warmth left, how could you revive him?” Eight Rules said, “If he is capable of seventy-two transformations, he has seventy-two lives. Listen, you stretch out his legs while I take care of him.” Sha Monk indeed straightened Pilgrim’s legs while Eight Rules lifted his head and straightened his upper torso. They then pushed his legs up and folded them around the knees before raising him into a sitting position. Rubbing his hands together until they were warm, Eight Rules covered Pilgrim’s seven apertures and began to apply a Chan method [anmo chanfa, 按摩禪法] of massage on him (emphasis added). The cold water, you see, had had such a traumatic effect on Pilgrim that his breath was caught in his cinnabar field and he could not utter a sound. He was lucky, therefore, to have all that rubbing, squeezing, and kneading by Eight Rules, for in a moment his breath went through the three passes, invaded the bright hall, and burst through his apertures. and burst through his apertures. “O Master,” he [Monkey] began to say (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 2, p. 232).

八戒笑道：「兄弟莫哭。這猴子佯推死，嚇��們哩。你摸他摸，胸前還有一點熱氣沒有？」沙僧道：「渾身都冷了，就有一點兒熱氣，怎的就得回生？」八戒道：「他有七十二般變化，就有七十二條性命。你扯著腳，等我擺佈他。」真個那沙僧扯著腳，八戒扶著頭，把他拽個直，推上腳來，盤膝坐定。八戒將兩手搓熱，仵住他的七竅，使一個按摩禪法。原來那行者被冷水逼了，氣阻丹田，不能出聲。卻幸得八戒按摸揉擦，須臾間，氣透三關，轉明堂，沖開孔竅，叫了一聲：「師父啊！」

Also, in chapter 69, he argues with Wukong about the attributes and usages of a medicinal ingredient:

“The flavour of badou [巴豆],” said Eight Rules, “is slightly acrid; its nature is hot and poisonous. Able to pare down the hard and the accumulated, it will therefore sweep out the submerged chills of one’s internal cavities. Able to bore through clottings and impediments, it will therefore facilitate the paths of water and grain. This is a warrior who can break down doors and passes, and it should be used lightly” (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 274).

八戒道：「巴豆味辛，性熱有毒。削堅積，蕩肺腑之沉寒；通閉塞，利水穀之道路。乃斬關奪門之將，不可輕用。」

Source:

Wu, C., & Yu, A. C. (2012). The Journey to the West (Vols. 1-4) (Rev. ed.). Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.

[incorrect-green-lantern-quotes]

I went down an Arrowverse wiki rabbit hole (don't ask) and somehow ended up at Coast City Pizza. I'm pretty sure it's exclusively a CW show invention that's just supposed to be a comic book reference, but just how good is this pizza that Barry will run halfway across the country and back for it??

Like, I know his super speed probably makes that trip as trivial as driving a few blocks would be for non-speedsters, but still! Barry could get pizza from New York or Chicago or Detroit yet somehow Coast City's pies beats out all the famous regional ones.

This little tidbit is especially funny to me, since I was born and raised in LA. Despite the existence of California Pizza Kitchen, neither my home state nor any of its cities are particularly known for its pizza. So what the hell is Coast City doing? Their pizza has gotta have like, the most cartoonish cheese-pull in the whole country

ok but actually tho, what would Coast City pizza be like? I doubt they're just slapping avocado slices and shrimp on it and calling it a day. Nah, my guess is that this fictional style of pizza is unique to Hal Jordan's hometown for a reason, whether that be ingredients or composition.

Now, sources vary about Coast City's exact location, but all of them agree that it's somewhere on the California coast. This could mean the residents like fresh seafood on their pizzas, but given the divisiveness of anchovy as a topping, I kinda doubt that. Rather, I think the warm Mediterranean climate of California's coast would make thinner crust pizza the preferred choice over something heartier like deep dish.

This, combined with probable proximity to San Francisco, conjures the image of sourdough stretched and spun into an especially flavorful tavern-style crust that's baked in a wood-fired oven. But what goes on top?

California is one of the big agricultural producers in the US, particularly for fruit. So it's probably not hard to source really fresh local produce like olives for toppings. If you're vegetarian or vegan, I imagine Coast City pizzerias have plenty of options.

For the meat lovers, there's the standard pepperoni or sausage ofc, but I think what would really make Coast City unique would be taking advantage of a California classic in Santa Maria-style BBQ.

So if you were to ask Hal Jordan what the best pizza in the world is, he'd tell you it's a tavern-style sourdough crust that's shatteringly crisp, topped with tangy tomato sauce, oozing Oaxaca cheese, salty olives, and thin slices of smoky tri-tip beef...

Damn now I'm hungry for a completely fictional pizza

[forever-a-lake-effect-kid]

[ID: A four-panel comic in the style of "self-care tips" memes. Four states are in four differently colored squares, giving advice. In top left, Illinois, a state with light brown skin and darker reddish-brown hair that's slightly past chin length and curly at the bottom, wearing a red-and-blue hat, red-and-blue striped scarf, and shirt with a Chicago flag patch on the arm, says with a confident grin "Defend sanctuary cities." In top right, Minnesota, a state with pale skin and short straight blond hair, wearing a purple shirt with the state of Minnesota on it and a blue flannel, folds their arms and glares, saying "Protect trans youth." In bottom left, Oregon, a state with light skin and short, messy brown hair, wearing a black Oregon Trail t-shirt and green beanie, raises a molotov cocktail in the air and yells "SET FIRE TO TESLA DEALERSHIPS!" with a feral grin. In bottom right, New York, a state with brown skin and short, dark brown hair, wearing a black hoodie and red beanie, grips the panel border as they lean forward and glare, saying "Sue the fuck out of the bastards. And win." End ID.]

happy start of wttt week!!! i'm so psyched for this, i've already been seeing a lot of fantastic stuff and it's really giving me a much-needed mental boost :')

as you all know there is. a lot. of terrible stuff happening out there right now. so after going back and forth between several different ideas i eventually settled on just highlighting some of the good stuff happening right now.

this is in the style of those self-care memes with advice like "murder is okay" "your feelings matter", but its... Self-Care For When Your Nation Is Descending Into Fascism. as such hopefully you can see that i am not actually advising you to set fire to tesla dealerships any more than those memes are actually saying that murder is okay. i still have my right to satire, for now. :)

sources for the news:

chicago, and the state of illinois, were sued by the trump administration for refusing to comply with ice attempts at deportation and maintaining their sanctuary city and state status. the mayor of chicago continued to defend chicago's status in a national hearing, along with 3 other city mayors, and while there were threats of a department of justice investigation, they appear to have not been carried out.

washington, oregon, and minnesota all sued the federal government to counter the order banning federal funding for gender-affirming care for people under 19 (colorado later joined). a federal judge ruled to block the removal of said federal funds. (even though most of the legal battle was in washington, i chose to draw minnesota because i was already drawing oregon and i didn't want to seem biased towards the pnw :P)

there have been multiple instances of people setting fire to or otherwise damaging tesla dealerships, but oregon had the first one, so it seemed fair to give this panel to them. :)

new york has been participating in a lot of lawsuits, as have many states. some of the things they've sued over including giving doge access to government systems (along with arizona, california, colorado, connecticut, delaware, maine, maryland, minnesota, nevada, new jersey, rhode island, and vermont) (a federal judge in manhattan ruled that doge should be blocked), the national institute of health cutting research funding (led by massachusetts, and along with 21 other states) (a federal judge again ruled in the states' favor), and unfreezing federal funds (the battle over this one is still ongoing, i think, but it was led by new york and joined by 22 other states and dc). the claim to winning is maybe a little overly optimistic, but in conditions like these, i think keeping up the fight is a victory in and of itself.

okay that's all my rambling for today '^^ tomorrow will be... *checks notes* oh, it'll also be political, okay. well. what can you expect in times like these :P

[bullet-prooflove]

https://www.tumblr.com/bullet-prooflove/778422615705534464/heyyy-do-you-still-write-for-otis?source=share

Different anon but omg what happened? 😱

So when I came back to Tumblr for the first time in two years I started writing Otis as I was rewatching Chicago Fire. He was the first character I wrote that wasn't a cop. (This was before my blog became major popular and I was testing the waters with new things and enjoying fandom again)

Anyway I wrote tons for him and ended up with a following, it was pretty fun. But it was also ALOT, like my inbox was constantly full with requests for him. I'm talking I had over 130 asks for him at some point and that was before I was doing the music prompt lists.

It became a little pressurised and I decided I wanted to take a break from the character. I think I'd also watched his death scene at the time and was like, now is a good time to explore other characters. Also I had racked up a massive masterlist for him so it wasn't like I hadn't been writing loads for him and fulfilling asks. I was very oversaturated with him.

I deleted all the asks because that was a weight on my chest and announced on my blog I was going to stop writing on him for now.

I started getting nasty ANON messages in my ask box really kicking off saying I was cutting off their supply to their fav character and I was the only good writer for him, I had an obligation and how could I do this to them. They were like if you knew the death scene was going to stop you writing him why watch it and basically entitled shit like that. It went on for a few weeks until they got the message that yelling at me through the ANON screen wasn't going to make me write for him again.

Unfortuantely that experiance is kind of tied to that character for me now, I don't want to deal with those type of people again.

[incorrectlooneytunesquotes]

I can't even think with that in my face! You're smothering my genius!

Wile E. Coyote to Hugo the Abominable Snowman

[cinnamonglrls]

kerosene. [R.R]

summary: the fire reaches a fever pitch.

wc: 5.7k

4,320 seconds. 

180 days.

26 weeks.

Six months.

Pure, unequivocal radio silence.

You got the message, especially after your blue message spun green when you texted him the morning after that night at HEIDI’s. You got the message, especially when he subtly swerved your attempts at approaching him on two separate occasions with the intent of sincerely apologizing for your inebriated lapse of judgement face-to-face— your persistance a true testament of your developing appreciation of the budding friendship you two were cultivating in the bracket of time post-injury and pre-fallout, no matter how short lived it was.

A corpse of a caterpillar before it could ever bloom into a butterfly. 

4,320 seconds. 

180 days.

26 weeks.

Six months.

In all honesty, you wanted to be buried where you laid. When you awoke with three flutters of your eyelids that morning, a shutter of film-burned memories of the night prior rolling on a reel that you played, paused, rewinded and repeated in your mind’s eye, you wanted to be buried where you laid. It was the type of regret and humiliation that drives you into nosediving beneath the cover of your duvet, hiding from the harsh realities and cruel, cruel consquences of casamigos.

He’s fucking married.

You groaned and moaned and pressed your knuckles into the corners of your closed eyeballs in frustration, berating yourself underneath the safety of the thick comforter where no one could find you.

4,320 seconds. 

180 days.

26 weeks.

Six months.

You had heard it in passing. You were winding down for the night at the barren arena after a show in Chicago. Only a few people were left at the venue, comprising of staff and a handful of wrestlers who were scheduled to perform near the end of the show that night. You were stripped clean of your in-ring gear and settled for something far more comfortable; a tight angelic tank top with black sweatpants. A NIKE duffle bag hanging off of your shoulder as you cruised the hallway on your way out to the escalade that would then lead you to your hotel for the night when a murmured conversation you couldn't help but overhear as you passed an office peaked your interest.

“… Has a really good eye for talent. I mean Roman was the one who put Isabel on Paul’s radar when she was still over at NXT, after all. I think that…”

It stopped you in your tracks.

You slowly leaned your body onto the cold cinderblock wall in the dimlit vacant hallway, a few safe feet away from the source of the voices. A deep fold etched between the natural arches of your brows as you stay within earshot of the conversation but also at secure enough distance to eavesdrop without arousing suspicion. Roman put you on Paul’s radar? 

You don’t remember how long you stood hidden in that dark hall, quiet as a mouse with your teeth gnawing at your bottom lip and then your fingernails, a cycle that rotated as you skimmed through cold memories of how unwelcome you were made to feel upon your debut at his hands, which was bad enough. But he was a factor in the reason you were placed on the main roster in the first place?

It wasn’t until you heard shuffling of feet originating from the office that you hurriedly pushed yourself off the wall and made your way down the hall and out the building.

4,320 seconds. 

180 days.

26 weeks.

Six months.

Part-timer.

It was a nickname he worked overtime to earn.

Since the fallout, he’d begun limiting his appearances on television— only showing face once every two to three weeks at best. A privilege that came with the termination of the storyline that included you two, coincidently. 

The sudden decision to cut the cord on the narrative, which came only three weeks after that fateful night, snatched the rug right from beneath your feet. It cut your air time by a whopping seventy-five percent, infuriating loyal wrestling fans all around the world who made their voices heard. 

Trending tweets. Cunning signs. Persistent chants.

The people wanted you so much that you were coined The People’s Princess.™

Paul’s demeanor as he delivered you the news indicated that there was nothing he could do. It was beyond him. 

The biggest upset of it all, a sentiment that you felt deep within you and a sentiment that wrestling outlets and general fans all around the world who also had the capacity to recognize it echoed: this juggernaut of an opportunity to showcase your skill was seized from you before you could really prove yourself worthy. To the people, to yourself.

A corpse of a caterpillar before it could ever bloom into a butterfly. 

And now, there’s a fire sparking in your gut.

Chocolate covered strawberries, extravagant flowers, trips out the country, frequent and random proclamations of love.

There wasn’t a stone Roman left unturned for Thea. 

Overcompensation tends to be a symptom of gnawing guilt, after all. 

His forehead gently falls against your knee at the same time his eyes flutter closed in surrender, like he knows what you’re thinking about. Like he’s thinking about it too. You spread your legs a tiny inch. A forbidden invitation paired with a whiny whimper; a desperate siren plea of his name.

After bolting out of your hotel room that night with the speed of lightning, he stayed encaged within the peace of his escalade for a long time before pulling off, tightening his jaw and flexing his fingers for any semblance of control. And he’ll never admit it if he was ever confronted, but he spun the block. He pulled back into the parking garage and contemplated it.

He thought about it.  

But then he thought about Thea. Thea, who has never forsaken him. Thea, who has suffered through the loss of all three babies they’ve ever conceived before birth. Thea, who slept on uncomfortable chairs at the hospital during the trials and tribulations of his health battles. Thea, who left everything she’s ever known to facilitate his career aspirations. 

So how could he? He couldn’t.

He did everything in his power to scrub your essence off of him: physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. He showered three times in succession. He blocked your phone number. Then, he made a couple phone calls to management with a request that carried no room for leeway this time around.

He dug through the cardboard boxes in the dark and dusty attic and stared at the crumpled up piece of vows with faded lead etched on it from all those years ago, reminding him why he chose Thea.

And that was it. 

It’s been 4,320 seconds, 180 days, 26 weeks, six months since you last seen Roman.

Until now.

Now, as you sit atop a high stool at Naomi’s outdoor bar and lock eyes with him the second you toss your head over your shoulder— curious as to the influx of commotion at the backyard gate during her and Jimmy’s 4th of July cookout. You wish you didn’t feel it. The peace that you’ve made with the heat that blooms in your ribcage but spreads like wildfire. Your eyes dart to Naomi and she looks just as lost as you are when she inconspicuously slides her phone out her backpocket.

mimi ♡: He told us he wasn’t gonna be able to make it. I have no idea what’s going on. I’m so sorry 

mimi ♡: U know I would’ve told u he was coming if I knew                                             

2:21 PM.

You grip the spine of your mimosa a little tighter than you were two minutes ago,the sizzle of smoke, indistinct rowdy chatter, laughing children, and throwback jams wafting from the stereo of a hefty speaker overstimulating your senses now that you were far more distressed than you were two minutes ago. 

There’s a lot of pressure on you right now. You’re in an uncomfortable situation, not only because you’re in the same vicinity as the man who is the direct source of every single issue you’ve faced in your professional career, but you’re on his turf. This is his family. You’re the outsider. 

Unbeknownst to you, standing beside his brother at the grill, Jey is watching this all play out with the eye of an eagle. He watches Roman unlatch the backyard gate with one hand and carry a shiny package of TNT explosives under the other arm, Thea trailing in behind him as symphonies of greetings expel from family members scattered around the yard. He catches the silent interaction between you and his sister-in-law and sighs under his breath.

“Man, hold this, uce.” 

He passes his seasoned pair of tongs to Jimmy and unties the knot of his apron behind his back as he makes his way to the backyard bar. An arched football slices through the blue sky when he slips the apron off and tosses it over his shoulder, sliding behind the bar before you see him.

“Uh-uh, where you goin?” he interrupts you before you can slide off the stool.

“Um, to the restroom?”

He smacks his teeth, “with your purse?”

You look down to the bag clasped in your hand before sighing, sitting back on the stool and placing your purse onto the bartop.

He grabs your mimosa by the spine and tugs some liquor from beneath the bar before pouring it into the mimosa. You laugh, so he laughs.

“I can’t stay, Jey.”

“Ion know whatchu talkin bout.”

“Yes you do. That’s why you’re over here, right?”

He looks up at you from his concoction and then closes the cap on the liquor, returning it back to it’s place.

“I’m over here cause you look like a wallflower at my brothers get-together. And if there are any wallflowers, that means the kickback lame,” he looks away from you, “Aye Jimmy! Is this kickback lame?!” he yells out for his brother and you scramble to slap him on his chest to get him to lower his voice as to not any draw attention.

“Hell naw! Who said that?”

Jey shrugs, tossing a finger at you.

You hear grass crunching under shoes from behind you and suddenly Jimmy is sitting to the left of you but you can’t peel your eyes off of Jey, your hand incredulously cupping your mouth at his outburst.

“Say it ain’t so.” Jimmy states, looking between you and Jey.

Shaking your head, you explain to him what you were telling his brother. The conversation shifts gears when Naomi joins and persuades the group into playing a round of uno over at the outdoor sofa. One round crossfaded into three which crossfaded into numerous other card and board games until the sun set. 

When you find yourself growing restless, you separate from the group with a stack of dirty dishes in your palms and stroll into the empty house to discard of the dishes. 

As the faucet’s stream polishes the ceramics in your hand as you hold it under the water, you feel it.

Eyes.

It instills a deep sense of paranoia within you. Your eyes have scanned the expanse three separate times, lazily and then slowly and then very meticulously in hopes of pinpointing the source. You sweep the hazy vicinity once more but this time you lock eyes with the source.

You expel a tight sigh past your lips. You don’t even have to turn around. You know he’s there.

Something softly thuds against the kitchen island and you turn your head to see your wallet placed there before his herculean frame— almost a silhouette due to the luminated backdrop of the tangerine sunset past his build, in the backyard. You soundlessly return to softly scrubbing the plate clean.

A minute passes.

He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move either.

“Jimmy and Naomi put alot of effort into putting this together.”

“So.”

“So don’t make me fuck it up for them, Roman,” you tuck a loose strand behind your ear, “don’t make me fuck it up.”

With his bottom lip bitten between his teeth in ponder, he takes a second to digest the sentiment. He’s never really taken you for a brazen daredevil at the mouth with the singular exception of the moments following the time he unintentionally caused significant damage to your ankle and became the catalyst of the first and only blip on your professional tracksheet thus far. Even then, that independent situation unfurled after months and months and months of subtle transgressions— equivalent to having a long, less than ideal day and bursting into tears only after you arrive home and your belt loop gets latched on a door handle.

It seems to be a pattern with you two.

The ebb-and-flow. The long periods of piling tension rolled into motion due to his inability to communicate and behave with you the way he truly desires and then manifesting in frustration but delivered to your front door in the final form of misdirected ignorance. 

It never fails.

That usual sensual liveliness about you that piqued his interest during that fateful NXT interview almost two years ago has been stunted. He knows it. Everyone knows it. Now, you’re self-aware enough to recognize that falling out with the thickest pillar supporting the operations of a male dominated, billion dollar business was a major oversight on your behalf which has almost boxed you into the placement of a social outcast. The slippery politics sucking you dry and leaving you for a pile of bones. 

There’s a varnish of guilt that lines his features, perhaps due to the hazelnut sadness in your eyes. He’s heard indistinct whispers through the grapevine for a while during his attempts to keep his distance that can be traced via a paper trail back to your coworkers and peers, ridiculous enough that he refuses to breathe life into them, but it’s hard to refuse when you’re standing before him. As breathtaking as you’ve always been, yet absolutely depleted, “Isabel…” 

And perhaps it’s what propelled him into swiping your wallet from your table after ensuring his wife was deeply engrossed in conversation with a family member, crushing Jey’s attempt of a heroic intervention beneath the sole of his shoe like he was a slimy cockroach with a low and stern Shut Up when he saw Roman take your belonings and roam into the house behind you.

Your hand, fatigued from holding the grudge, drops the ceramic plates with a reverbrating clank into the sink. You rush past the kitchen and through the halls with every intent of preserving yourself from digging yourself into a deeper hole, disoriented when your elbow is gripped and tugged into an empty bedroom and bookended with the silky click of a lock.

The speed in which you tug your arm away from his possessive grasp startles you both once in the solitude of the empty sanctuary, but him more so than you. An unsuccessful organ transplant where the body deems the foreign entity as a threat rather than an antidote— you have emotionally marinated in your resentment towards him for so long that your body’s natural response to his touch is immediete rejection, “don’t touch me.”

Gathering the courage to apply your body weight on your other foot as you stand, you immediately scurry to your feet, inhaling a tight gust of air and squeezing your eyes shut.

His eyes spring around your features in multiple, quick successions, “what the fuck do you want from me? Huh!”

Peace. Uproar. Honesty. Transparency. 

Despite your own desire for a dose of his honesty, you’re hypocritically far too polished and noble to admit what it is you truly itch for from him. Too honorable and righteous to peel the rug back inch by glorious inch and reveal the tight-lipped accumulation of pink dirt you’ve swept beneath the surface for a very long time in the name of a carrying a clear conscious and straying away from ruffling any feathers. And, he simply does not deserve that from you. He doesn't deserve your secrets. He doesn't deserve your vulnerability. He doesn't deserve a fleeting glance at the cards tucked in your hands. So you keep them close to your chest, “I want absolutely nothing from you. I want nothing to do with you.” Snapshots flit through your mind at unruly speeds: your conversation with Paul, the faint bone-chilling sensation of fire running up your ankle, eating lunch in isolation in your dressing room as a rookie, the tight finger-snap of rejection pooling red-hot embarrassment in your stomach at the hotel, his suave and effortless manuevers and dodging your every feeble attempt at an apology. Weak and shaky, “you’re pathetic.”

A whistling wind rolls a tumbleweed across the sandy soil of a Nevada desert.

Despite his own desire for a dose of your honesty, he’s hypocritically far too dutiful to admit what it is he truly itches for to himself. Too obligated to promises he’s already made to indulge in the forbidden fruit that haunts him in his dreams and stirs him awake in the midst of stormy nights. His conscious torn into two, split evenly in the middle. Snapshots flit through his mind at unruly speeds: his heart nosediving into his stomach at the haunting sound of your scream piercing the air the night of your injury, his conversation with Paul, lingering glances despite your awareness, eyes pinned on you during your first night back at gorilla. But he’s too obligated to promises he’s already made. His jaw wired tightly shut in indignation, he stares at you in silence as tension rolls off the blades of his rigid shoulders.

You’re a hellcat on turbo with a dark tint and severed breaks when you get like this, “look at you. You know it too. You can never confront shit. Ever. All you do is run.” You pause and desperately rummage for something that will elicit a reaction from him even half as equivalent in intensity to the kinds that you’ve been grappling with, “like a bitch.”

And you get it.

His thumb and forefinger press into the plush flesh of your jaw with analytical precision and a tilting force just enough that you’re resorted to eyeing him down the slope of your nose before you even get the chance to blink. Your chest rises and falls in sharp cycles, your stomach tied in a tight knot as he furrows his brows while looking down at you, “oh yea? I’m a bitch?” 

“Yeah.”

“And what else? Tell me.” 

When it gets too intense, when his gaze starts to feel like he’s talking to you without saying a word, when it feels like you’ve known him forever and just met him all at once, when it feels like he’s a second away from unearthing your most depraved impulses, when you start to feel small at the foot of his scrutiny, you shove his hand off and watch the floor as he emits a low scoff beneath his breath.

His hunky frame inches away from yours, his arms across his chest, “gon ‘head. Tell me about myself since you know every-fucking-thing Isabel.”

In biology, the way in which we ensure immunization from foreign bacterias and virus’ is by taking it upon ourselves to insert those virus-causing organisms within us via vaccination with the intent of familiarizing our body enough to the organism to build the antibody to fight it— that way, the illness doesn't have a profound effect on our immune system should we ever contract the virus again, since we were proactive and already trained our body to combat it. In life, resistance to fear is built the same way. You have to be foreseeing enough to inject yourself with temporary toxins for the greater good despite it feeling like you’re nosediving into deep waters, swimming with blood-thirsty sharks as cinderblocks hang tied to your ankles, “no. I don’t know everything, but I do know one thing.” Your eyes latch with his like a lock and key, your voice small as a mouse, “I know you feel it too.”

All the air in the room has been sucked out. 

You’re in the middle of the ocean, one blood-thirsty shark slowly circling you.

“It’s why you ripped me off of you like I was a venereal disease and almost shattered the foot I stand on. It’s why you haven’t been able to look me in the eye for the past six months, right?” You have to know. You have to. Because whether he knows it or not, the career you’ve sacrificed blood, sweat, and tears for hangs on the line tied by a thin thread. And apart from that, you don’t care about what else really hangs in the balance in the moment: not his wife, not his self perception, not even yours. If you know the why, then you’ll know just how to manuever this dillema so your career is in safe hands. 

His chest puffs out once, a chuckle barren of humor entirely spills from his nostril— eyes ablaze. Deciding against dignifying you with a response, he turns and walks to the door.

“It’s why you put in a good word for me, isn’t it?”

Has a really good eye for talent. I mean Roman was the one who put Isabel on Paul’s radar when she was still over at NXT, after all. 

Stillwater. 

His back prevents the sight of his eyelids rolling shut as his fingers mold around the door handle. 

His unresponsiveness feeds the fire of your spiel, “I’ll violate my contractual obligations. I’ll go elsewhere. Tell me I’m making this all up and it’s a coincidence. Tell me I just keep on stepping on your toes and that’s where it starts and ends. I’ll make all of our lives easier. Because I don’t want this. I don’t want my position in this organization to be dependent on the state of my relationship with you. I deserve better than that, Roman. So call me crazy, or be honest to the both of us.”

If regret was a color, it would be the film of deep navy blue that envelops the morning just a couple footsteps before dawn. Nostalgic and self-depricating. Something like the faint billow of Bobby Womack’s If You Think You’re Lonely Now wafting in the air of The Bellagio’s bar in the same fashion the scent of funnel cake at an amusement park does. Regret is the condensed glass on ice in his palm, melting on borrowed time. 

Perhaps the worst part of regret is the alternative, the masochistic relish in marinating in another universe in which your decision is slightly or entirely different than the one you landed on, resulting in a completely different outcome. Is the grass greener on the other side? Or is it green where you water it? Was the grass doomed from the start, sprouting from contaminated soil with infected toxins?

Perhaps the grass is green under you and there is no contingency.

It’s nomansland. It’s quicksand except every single grain of sand is an alternate outcome, engulfing his lungs as the ground swallows him whole, belching, and spitting out nothing but his bones.

A thin tube of brown velvet lies nestled between your index finger and thumb, tracing the lining of your razor sharp cupid bow with your eyes glues to the compact mini mirror the size of your palm in the back of the black escalade. When the grandeur golden marquee of your hotel approaches into view, you place the liner back into your clutch and exit the vehicle, tossing a curt Thank You to the chauffeur.

Pure kismet, he spots you instantly. 

Pure kismet, you spot him instantly.

It isn’t discernible to neither of you when his knee begins to bounce beneathe the guise of the hovering counter as you begin to approach, his head hung low as if there were something suddenly very interesting on the napkin under the foot of his whiskey. 

The last conversation you two had two months ago marked the beginning of something else entirely for you. The response you were fishing for that night returned an empty hook, but there was something final in its essence. After all, there’s only so much water you can fit under the bridge before it overflows. As luck would have it, or just the natural cycle of good karma, you were offered a contract at AEW with benefits that chucked your current arrangement with WWE out of the frame, including complete creative control of your character and likeness. An iridescent, silky pearl discovered within the jaws of a grueling tough-as-shit clam, “you didn’t think I’d leave without saying goodbye, did you?”

His glass meets his lips, his body facing forward entirely, “I did, actually.”

You have a newfound sense of calm within you. The type of peace that only the knowledge of what’s to come can ensure. The type of peace that envelops you when you see the sun yawn over the sky after a very dark night. Trusting what you can’t exactly see. Blind faith, “I don’t like to leave things unsaid. You should know that about me.”

This draws him to you. He eyes you behind his drink. His hooded eyes take you in before the glass contacts the wooden counter with a clank. He rolls his lips into his mouth and looks away, “that’s not your color.”

“Excuse me?”

Silence. 

You raise your hand in the air and point to his drink when the bartender catches your eye, signaling one for yourself, “whatever that means.” You watch him mindlessly roll the band on his finger before peeping out again, “what’s my color then?”

The color you were in the first day he saw you, “cherry red.”

You glance down at the minimalistic black silk clinging onto the skin of your frame, dipping and divoting along with the natural curve and pivot of you. You shrug, thinking nothing of it, “my date liked it.”

How do you mourn the loss of something you never really had? How do you bury something that never even lived? Perhaps the reason why the thought of you out with someone else is lighting his skin on fire is because he’s silently aware of where the fingers of fault should be pointed at and there’s nothing he can do to negate it. But hurt men are impossible men, “well you’re here with me so I take it he was a dud.” 

The sound you emit is half a laugh and half a scoff. You thank the bartender with a curt nod and nurse the glass with your palm, “You’re unbelievable. Has anyone ever told you that?” he mindlessly shrugs, “anyways. i just wanted to stop by and… clear the air before I left. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but last night was my last ni—”

“—I was introduced to wrestling when I was in the Airforce.”

When the inital slight surprise of the unexpected revelation wears off, a phantom thumbnail of a polished silver dogtag swinging on the neck of Roman’s olive green fitted tee— tucked underneath camo cargos comes alive in your minds eye. A location somewhere confidential. Somewhere top secret, but sandy and hot, his skin tanned and freckles indulgent. His hair unkempt and glossy with sweat as his upper body folds in situps when in the privacy of isolation. 

He runs his fingers through his rough beard, still faced forward, “whenever any one of us had a bone to pick with one another over there, we’d handle it like men; with our fists. Cut our losses if we were defeated. First blood would end the fight. But it started getting messy. Rules were getting bent. Our men were getting hurt.” He takes a sip, “one time one of the boys stole one of the airmen’s breadrolls at lunch. The concussion put him on his back for a month. Our sergeant held our feet to the fire.”

You fill in the blank, “so they started wrestling instead.”

He lips purse in acknowledgement once.

The Airforce was the perfect solution to the troubled adolescent. There tends to be a haunting trail of overcompensation that’s left in the aftermath of trauma. Ghosts that whisper indistinctly in your ear, of which only your insecurities and weaknesses and fears are audible— telling you that you’re weak and that you won’t ever amount to shit and that you should just quit while you’re ahead. Or maybe not. Maybe that just applies to him, “there was something about the opportunity to discipline myself that drew me to enlisting. My pops was a piece of shit. No way around it. Used to beat on my mom. Used to belittle me, taunted me when I tried to help her.”

Roman tries to lower and sit on his haunches, looking immensely out of his element as this is the most concerned he’s ever been about you since meeting you, “hold o-,”

Perhaps the fuel to build his body came from the fire of helplessness that afflicted him as a doe-eyed child, hiccuping tears away as his father scoffed and laughed at his feeble attempt at intervention. Perhaps the opportunity to disipline himself was never that simple, but rather a way to become the man he’s always aspired to be; stronger, tougher, resilent. Because our past is never truly in the past. 

And if you listen close enough, it sounds like there’s something he’s telling you without telling you.

He chuckles, but it’s absent of any humor, “I’ve spent my entire life wanting to believe I was nothing like him, that I was better than him, but shit, maybe I’m my fathers son after all.” 

Half of a man, just like his father. Wandering eyes, just like his father. Except the circumstances are vastly different. Except the context is vastly different. Except he’d never dream of laying a hand on you with the intention of hurting you. Except his father never felt a damn thing for any of those women. Except nothing is the same at all.

“Why are you telling me this, Roman?”

So call me crazy, or be honest to the both of us.

“I don’t like to leave things unsaid. You should know that about me.”

The fact that he’s too little too late isn’t lost on him, the optimistic hurl of a basketball piercing through the air mere seconds after the game-ending buzzer. But the opposing team is already celebrating, bottles of champagne popped and confetti sprinkling from the sky. 

“I don’t think that’s true at all. I think you’re the most conflicted man I’ve ever known, but you’ve never wavered. You face adversity in whichever form life decides for it to manifest that day yet you’ve never compromised your values. Your father sounds like a wet sock and I’m sure he’d be devastated to hear that you’re nothing like him despite what your mind tells you, Top Gun.”

A subtle tight-lipped smile sparks to life, warmth radiating in the ribcage of his chest.

And suddenly there is a lightness that settles between the two of you that can only be compared to the calm after the storm. The gradual sway of the trees to a slow halt after a particularly devastating hurricane, when the winds slack and the dark clouds part to make room for the sun. Because there are no more questions to ask, and you aren’t in the dark anymore. 

The two of you spend the night immersed in the longest conversation you’ve ever shared under the soft lighting of The Belliago’s bar in the name of a bid farewell. He tells you tales about his time in the force that make you laugh and you fill him in on things he missed in the six month time span during the fallout. The bartender brings you two a bowl of macadamia nuts that he mindlessly shoves to the side because you’re allergic. He slyly mentions your dress again with the intent of you elaborating more on the man you just returned from a date with so he can dissect him and make him lesser of a man for his own pride but you don’t take the bait. You tell him how happy you are about the height this new endeavor is going to take your career. He can see the light in your eyes again. 

When you excuse yourself and wander off to the ladies room, he blows a gust of air that’s been repressed in the deepest pit of his lungs all night and rubs his hand down his face. If regret was a color, it would be the forlorn warm lighting of a hotel bar somewhere in Nevada. Melancholic and self-loathing. Something like the faint billow of The Temptation’s My Girl wafting in the air of The Bellagio’s bar in the same fashion the scent of chlorine at a pool on a summer day does. Regret is the condensed glass on ice in his palm, melted. 

And it dawns on him that you don’t plan on returning when he finally notices you took your clutch to the ladies room with you.

He watches in slow motion with baited breath as you exit the bathroom, toss him one last glance over your shoulder, and leave the bar for the lobby. Quicksand. The empty archway carved into the bar’s wall instead of doors facilitate the view of you entering the elavators when the stainless steel doors slide open. Quicksand. His eyes glued on you, he tosses a wad of cash onto the counter as his feet move on their own accord. Quicksand. All the air is sucked out of your lungs when you see him approaching with the prowess of a black panther with every intention of pouncing. Quicksand. His body barely slides inbetween the constricting steel plates before his mouth is latching onto yours so intensly that even a pack of hungry wolves couldn't rip him off. His palm wrapped around your throat, your back collides into the corner of the elevator as your fingers grasp onto his tee for dear life. A deep rumbling of I fucked up I fucked up tumbling past teeth, moaning lips, and writhing bodies. 

sorry for the wait. school been turning me every way but loose i fear. but cimtfyk is back andddd it’s about to get uglier than vince mcmahon. thank u for reading <3

tags : @cyberdejos2 @annfg8 @looneyloser0 @joannasteez

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Truthout:

It takes approximately 700,000 megawatt hours of electricity to power Chicago’s more than 400 municipal buildings every year. As of January 1, every single one of them — including 98 fire stations, two international airports, and two of the largest water treatment plants on the planet — is running on renewable energy, thanks largely to Illinois’ newest and largest solar farm. The move is projected to cut the carbon footprint of the country’s third-largest city by approximately 290,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year — the equivalent of taking 62,000 cars off the road, according to the city. Local decarbonization efforts like Chicago’s are taking on increasing significance as President-elect Donald Trump promises to reduce federal support for climate action. With the outgoing Biden administration doubling down on an international pledge to get the U.S. to net-zero emissions by 2050, cities, states, and private-sector players across the country will have to pick up the slack.

Chicago is one of several U.S. cities that are taking advantage of their bulk-buying power to spur new carbon-free energy development.

Chicago’s switch to renewable energy has been almost a decade in the making. The goal of sourcing the city’s power purely from carbon-free sources was first established by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2017. His successor, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, struck a 2022 deal with Constellation, an electricity supplier, to purchase the city’s energy from the developer Swift Current Energy beginning in 2025.

Swift Current began construction on the 3,800-acre, 593-megawatt solar farm in central Illinois as part of the same five-year, $422 million agreement. Straddling two counties in central Illinois, the Double Black Diamond Solar project is now the largest solar installation east of the Mississippi River. It can produce enough electricity to power more than 100,000 homes, according to Swift Current’s vice president of origination, Caroline Mann.

Chicago alone has agreed to purchase approximately half the installation’s total output, which will cover about 70 percent of its municipal buildings’ electricity needs. City officials plan to cover the remaining 30 percent through the purchase of renewable energy credits.

“That’s really a feature and not a bug of our plan,” said Deputy Chief Sustainability Officer Jared Policicchio. He added that he hopes the city’s demand for 100 percent renewable energy will encourage additional clean energy development locally, albeit on a much smaller scale, which will create new sources of power that the city can then purchase directly, in lieu of credits. “Our goal over the next several years is that we reach a point where we’re not buying renewable energy credits.”

More than 700 other U.S. cities and towns have signed similar purchasing agreements since 2015, according to a 2022 study from the World Resources Institute. Only one city, Houston, has a larger renewable energy deal than Chicago, according to Matthew Popkin, the cities and communities U.S. program manager at Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit whose research focuses on decarbonization. However, he added, no other contract has added as much new renewable power to the grid as Chicago’s.

[zepskies]

Hello hun! 😊

Okay, since I'm still on hold up here 🙈, I thought I send you a question.

How do you find a plot for your storys? What get's your inspiration going or what does spark you to make it a WIP?

So interested to hear how it works for you. 😁

Hey there, lovely!! 💜

Aww still waiting on Tracker to come out for you, huh? Almost there, right? 😅

But thank you for this question! The lovely @luci-in-trenchcoats asked me a similar one not too long ago in this ask, so my answer will be similar on some things.

⚡ Getting inspiration for stories:

Initially, my imagination always gets sparked by the "What If" question. Here are a few examples:

"What if Soldier Boy could be redeemed?" (Break Me Down - Soldier Boy x Reader)

"What if Dean Winchester had a Latina girlfriend?" (Midnight Espresso - Dean x Plus-sized Latina!Reader)

"What if Dean was a firefighter?" (Smoke Eater - Firefighter!Dean x Reader)

"What if Dean met his soulmate in season 1?" (Never Say Goodbye - Dean x Soulmate!Reader)

"What if Russell Shaw set his sights on his sister's best friend?" (Every Second Counts - Russell Shaw x Reader)

"What if you had a messy past you were running from, just like the new sheriff in town?" (Take Me Home - Beau Arlen x Reader)

You get the idea. 😂

✍🏽 Developing the plot:

After that, where I draw ideas for the plot depends on the kind of story I'm writing. And for that, I'm a big advocate of:

"Write what you know."

"Write what you can research."

"Write what you're interested in."

"Write what you've never tried to do before (but may secretly want to)."

Again, a couple of examples...

Break Me Down:

With BMD, I already had a loose concept in Checkerboard, with the reader working surveillance at Supe Affairs. It would paint her and Soldier Boy (Ben) as enemies from the start. "Enemies to lovers" was a trope I had never written before, but I thought it was a fun challenge, besides the obvious one of attempting to "redeem" Soldier Boy lol.

In general, I'm a sucker for the gruff, devil-may-care, rough exterior guy who only becomes soft for his girl. 😂

More practically though, I drew from the source material a bit for the Black Noir twist (the comics), and also from my love of Smallville for some of the superhero plot aspects. I also knew that if the reader was going to eventually give Ben a chance and see the humanity underneath, she would need time to do it. So what better way than with an accidental kidnapping? 😅

And somehow it became this quasi- Beauty & the Beast storyline that developed into Ben and the reader saving one another, in more ways than one. 💚

Smoke Eater:

With this story, I had several influences that helped me develop the plot. I have a deep and abiding love for cop and medical procedurals like Law & Order, House MD, and Chicago PD, but also for Chicago Fire in particular. (Also my uncle was a firefighter.) That helped me create Firehouse 25 and decide which canon characters I wanted to pull into the narrative.

It was my first ever full AU as well, so I drew a lot from the SPN canon S1-2 storyline to create the overarching murder mystery/the string of arsons. I was also very much impacted from stories my friends had told me of their experiences with sexual harassment, which is unfortunately where the Nick storyline came in.

And I actually drew a lot from my own experience with grief and loss in that story. Specifically in the challenges the reader faces with her family (with Dean's help). I wasn't conscious of it at the time, but after I wrote the initial drafts and started editing each chapter, I realized just where I was drawing from for that storyline. 💙

All that to say, that's a snapshot into my process from ideation to plotting! It's not always easy when you hit those difficult beats in a story, whether it's grief and loss, trauma and PSTD, or just the difficulties of making complex plot lines connect.

But overall, I do my best to have fun. If I'm not having fun, then why am I writing? 😘

Anyway. 😂 Thank you so much for this question, my friend! @jessjad I'm pretty sure this is way more than you wanted to hear, but I so appreciate you for asking about my writing process! 💗

[kaceyrps]

195 gifs of Jocelyn Hudon in Chicago Fire can be found in the source link. these are all from scratch so please don’t edit or claim as your own. if you plan on using these gifs please reblog this post.

triggers: facial injuries, blood, body image, fire, alcohol, food